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Youth Category 2nd Prize
Building the Defences of Peace in our Minds
(Original in Japanese)
Yoko Bizen
(Age 24, Japan)
“Since wars begin in the minds of men,
it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed”
Excerpt from the Preamble to the Constitution of UNESCO
“This is what I think.” “I see. But, this is what I think.” A history lesson in an international school in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. I lived in Japan until junior high school and was accustomed to made-in-Japan “history” where we simply took notes in our notebooks, and I remember being surprised to see my classmates declaring and debating their personal views of history in class. It was there that the seeds of common understanding were planted among the students, that they all had their own views of history based on their respective countries, religions and ethnic groups.
Perhaps it was because it was an international school in a United Arab Emirate where 80% of the total population comprises expatriates from neighboring and other countries that an environment in which people could engage in a free discussion like this, analyzing causes and process and evaluating historical facts about one such historical phenomenon existed.
However, is environment the only important factor? Certainly, people who live in a place with people of many nationalities may have a better mental attitude towards coexisting with different ethnic groups and cultures. I am ashamed to say, I lived in Dubai without ever really knowing what kind of country it was. That is why I ended up viewing friends from countries with strained relations such as Iranians and Iraqis, and Pakistanis and Indians with one-sided stereotypes such as “no wonder they don’t get on”, “they seem kind of aggressive” or “scary”. Initially, my friends also viewed me as a so-called “Japanese”. However, by sharing interests and cooperating with friends of many nationalities through club activities and the student council, we were able to get rid of all of our biases, and both my friends and I came to regard each other as individuals rather than people of a given nationality.
In general, I think resistance to equalization throughout the world, which is proceeding under the name of globalization, is causing an increase in closed ethnocentrism in each region. It is probably because I went to senior high school in Dubai and was able to acknowledge and respect differences in race and ethnicity, culture and religion among my multinational friends whilst associating with them as human beings, that I was able to build “defences of peace” in my mind and become the kind of person who refuses to reject other people as “barbaric” or “uncivilized” in international circumstances where a “catena of violence” continues.
At graduate school, I conduct research on education for reconciliation and mutual understanding in the Middle East. For example, in Israel, where Jewish and Arab students are locked in dispute, encounter programs * are offered by the School for Peace in the village “Oasis of Peace”. For each of these programs, 30 Jewish and Arab students participate in a 3-day program. The participants are split into 4-5 groups comprising equal numbers of each ethnic group. Once they have gotten to know each other, they engage in activities as a group, such as debates on cultural and political dialogue and pseudo-negotiations on various social and cultural issues existing between them. A total of approximately 1,000 people attend such programs every year. Such activities are valuable. However, can simply introducing your own culture or conveying the history of your own suffering in this way really instill tolerance towards others and create a society in which diversity is respected?
In most cases, exchanges begin with self-introductions, but if the names of people’s countries and ethnic groups are omitted, perhaps they could be freed of the framework of minority and majority, and interact without the biases implanted through education and the media. Perhaps this could provide a means of overcoming closed historical perspectives.
Of course, on a national level too, as with historic dialogue between former enemies Germany and Poland, efforts to change ethnocentric histories, which were designed to heighten mutual biases and hostility, to open histories that promote mutual understanding are important. But surely practice in such dialogues is an issue that should be tackled by flexible young people.
For example, having a multinational/multiethnic “mixed-up group” comprising mainly young people visit a historic site and comparing the common views of history held by the majority and those of the minority could offer the advantage of historic fieldwork that discovers historic facts unknown to the majority. This would teach them that just as we acknowledge differences in culture and nationality, different perspectives on individual historical phenomena exist, and lead them to respect such differences and forge mutual understanding. Perhaps this could foster peace among rival groups if it went beyond shallow cultural exchange and became dialogue among equals towards harmonious co-existence. Let us build the defences of peace in our minds.
* “Oasis of Peace” URL：http://nswas.org/
“The School for Peace” URL：http://sfpeace.org/index.php?_lang=en
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